{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/105/1050285.htm","path":"chr/ecf/105/1050285.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/105/1050285.htm","text":"Chapter 38 [XXXIV.]\u2014We Must Not Lie, Even for the Sake of Moderation. The Praise of Humility Must Not Be Placed to the Account of Falsehood.\nI am favourably disposed, indeed, to the view of our author, when he resists those who say to him, \u201cWhat you assert seems indeed to be reasonable, but it is an arrogant thing to allege that any man can be without sin,\u201d with this answer, that if it is at all true, it must not on any account be called an arrogant statement; for with very great truth and acuteness he asks, \u201cOn what side must humility be placed? No doubt on the side of falsehood, if you prove arrogance to exist on the side of truth.\u201d And so he decides, and rightly decides, that humility should rather be ranged on the side of truth, not of falsehood. Whence it follows that he who said, \u201cIf we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,\u201d 1232 must without hesitation be held to have spoken the truth, and not be thought to have spoken falsehood for the sake of humility. Therefore he added the words, \u201cAnd the truth is not in us;\u201d whereas it might perhaps have been enough if he merely said, \u201cWe deceive ourselves,\u201d if he had not observed that some were capable of supposing that the clause \u201cwe deceive ourselves\u201d is here employed on the ground that the man who praises himself is even extolled for a really good action. So that, by the addition of \u201cthe truth is not in us,\u201d he clearly shows (even as our author most correctly observes) that it is not at all true if we say that we have no sin, lest humility, if placed on the side of falsehood, should lose the reward of truth.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. V: A Treatise on Nat...","type":"page"}